Welcome to hell: welcome to FM programming. Looking at the latest Sydney surveys, we are still playing "snakes and ladders" on the FM band with Smooth FM picking up strongly in recent months as the usual suspects battle it out for the 18-to-45 market.
We entered Autumn 2016 with our annual radio reunion at our favourite venue, the Pymble Hotel. Yes folks, another success thanks to our Honorary Organiser Andrew Kilpatrick - the "Keeper of our Radio Treasures".
Sincere thanks to radio wiz Andrew Kilpatrick for taking the time to explain to me what Smooth FM is and where it came from. Apparently it used to be Vega but has now opted to be Smooth. I had to control my immediate reaction which was to ask Andrew what Vega was and where IT came from. Didn't pursue that line of enquiry: I hate to hear a grown man cry on the other end of the phone.
I'm leafing through the latest Sydney radio surveys and finding the trend now seems to be pretty well settled... Well, for the immediate period ahead anyway.
There has indeed been a bit of a delay in the latest update with your author having had to solve a major computer glitch. He agonized over this complex issue for some months until his daughter arrived recently, took one look at the computer, hit + on the zoom and solved the whole saga in 18 seconds.
I returned to Sydney, along with Mike Jeffreys, on a Friday afternoon.We got word that we were to start on Breakfast the following Monday, which was a bit of a shock. I had to get into the newsroom to familiarise myself with the panel over the weekend.